


gravity caught my love around

by cosmogyral



Category: Casanova (UK)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:16:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyral/pseuds/cosmogyral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellino/Casanova. Love in and out of bounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gravity caught my love around

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from "While You Were Sleeping," by Elvis Perkins. Thanks go to my Yuletide filter and everyone who had to hear me go "how can I write genderfuck for the master of genderfuck?" over and over again, weeks on end.
> 
> Written for thingswithwings

 

 

She dips down to Giacomo in the bed, her hair (as the weeks stretch) growing to tangle with his, to brush against his cheek, which drives him mad. When she is not tied up or standing up or pressed against another of Giacomo's friends -- a memorable week -- she is bending down to meet him. He loves looking up at her almost as much as she loves looking down at him, as much as she feels enormous and unstoppable.

She is making a catalog of the things he loves, not so that she can do them all -- she does not care how much it suits his passion and affection, she's not singing in his favorite church to be spat upon by the bishop. But she's not used to how extensive, how expansive the list becomes. She is not expecting him, two weeks into the arrangement, to suddenly tell her that her elbows are her finest qualities. She hadn't expected either that she would be warmed by this, even as she hits him with a pillow.

He loves watching her sing -- from the wings, silent. When she turns to catch his eye, he lifts the corner of his mouth. At first she thinks, it's because of their secret, and then when it isn't a secret any longer, she knows it's because he finds it hilarious to stand like some terrible omen and watch her and put her off her game by distracting her at key moments with how beautiful he is. Once she dedicates a song to her new manager and old friend, Giacomo Casanova, and the audience goes _wild_ , much louder than they'd been for her in the first place, but after the song they're maniacs. She is surrounded by a sea of applause. In the wings he's looking puppy-dog pleased. She imagines he will put up his paws and beg.

Instead that night he kisses his way down her stomach and rubs his thumbs into the circles where her hips spread, and asks if they can start a double act; he'll be the clown. She rolls over him and pins him down. She says, _you already are._

In the early days he loves to unravel her binding, to watch it spin away in a long stripe. He loves that breath she takes at the end of the procedure, when she inhales the whole room as though it's the first time she's breathed in years. He also and less endearingly loves to pull the stuffing out of her pants, her little _penne_ , and toss it up in the air. She dives for it every time, as though when it hit the ground it would hurt like she imagines. She is very attached to the little thing, but it chafes and she's glad to have it free. _Giacomo!_ she says, tugging it close. _I need to use that._

 _Oh, are we._ He grins. _Then it's better to break it in._

Later on, when there's no pretense and she doesn't need to, they bind her back up anyway. The fabric is finer than it has been, thin cotton, rich silk; the pressure is the same. It digs the same way into the bowl of her collarbone and the space between her ribs. His hands over it are more electric than they are over her bare skin, where they feel rough, not right. She isn't used to a man's hands on her body, except her own.

When they bind him, he laughs, he complains, he says his nipples will never recover. She yanks it tighter and watches him gasp and then turn to give her an injured glare.

The first dress they buy for her, she never wears. It's a glorious red, and it would make her eyes look luminous and huge, her neck long, her arms perfect, and she never even puts it on. Instead they get it home and she spreads it on the bed and remembers the first time she said she was a man, when she was barely a girl. The last time she wore the costume Giacomo's bought for her there had been no breasts to worry about, she'd been shaped in a different way, she'd had years of practice carrying herself like a modest young woman. She'd been hungry and clothes had been a convenience. She looks at the circus tent Giacomo got her, and says, _maybe another dress._

He examines it. He tells her that he knew it was a terrible idea in the milliners, and she looks up at him with a flash of fear before he says smoothly that it'd look much better on him. Will she help?

She will.

He fits neatly into the corset, though his hips are unflattering in the skirt. He wears it as badly as she would. He says, _In this, I could learn to sing. I'd be the amazing singing disaster. People would come from miles around to hear me butcher my own operas._

 _You'll be the amazing singing spaghetti if I can't get this closed._ She tugs it tighter, and adds, _and if I miss with your hose, you can pull off the castrato much better than I ever did._

 _No one could pull it off better than you--_ and after a minute's thought, he leers.

He curtseys as though he's had far too much practice, but she has to teach him to smile. He smiles like a man: wide, like a flash. He leaves his mouth open when he laughs. It shouldn't be attractive. She loves it, as she loves undoing the back of the dress clasp by clasp. He comments that this is often his favorite part, which makes her laugh, which she loves.

But she only wears other dresses.

When they're not using the stuffing in bed, they put it out on the hall table (well-washed) as a paperweight. It intrigues many of the guests. They turn it over and over in their hands. Bellino laughs, but she knows the feeling.

His body arching up to hers is a curve, is curvature, is the gentle sloping of the sea away from the horizon. When she follows it she is looking down a long, long way.

 


End file.
